Messages - Johnie Awesome

I met my girlfriend in orientation and we have been together ever since (we are both in our third years). We kept it quiet for a while, but it eventually got out and everyone knows about us. We work together for the same judge in our 3L exeternship and will be clerking for the same court (different judges) following graduation. It is possible to work, sometime it requires more patience because the work can make you stressed out. But I feel that I have done better academically because we have been together.

Thinking it would show that the person is willing to go out of his way to interview. If someone was willing to go out of their way that much, and not ask for anything from the firm I would be more impressed if I were evaluating that candidate.

The attorney you know you do does that is billing at least 2 of the 3 hours he spends in transit every day. He basically is in a moving office.

Go to the Christmas party, drink a mass quantity of some hard liquor you haven't drank ever/in a long time. Then spend the remainder of the night aggressively hitting on best looking girlfriend/wife/daughter of the most senior partner who has a lady with him that fits your intoxicated "standards." Then if the partner says something to you, tell him numerous ways that you believe he can improve his firm and practice. Do that and you're golden.

Seriously, this guy has to be kidding me. He is mad because he cannot find a 100k plus job at one of the most severe economic downtowns in history in an oversaturated profession that is highly affected by the economic problems. Suck it up, you're not the only one. I had a hard time finding a position, I networked by fowarding my resume to anyone in the profession that I thought liked me enough to put in a good word for me and pass along. After a little while my resume ended up in a judge's hands and now I have a clerkship making aout 50k to start. You have to realize that it's not hazing, it's dollars and cents. These employers are facing financial problems, they have bills and have other mouths to feed. Hiring new people in a situtaion where they don't have enough work for their existing employees is not their first priority.

You want to impress an employer, let them know that you took a train an hour and a half to speak to them and you'll be taking it back after the interview. Don't ask to be compensated, just do it. You're seriously not the only one who had a hard time find a job. I have most of the rejection letters hanging on the wall in my Moot Court board office and it fills up most of a large wall.

Take a moment and realize that you have a doctorate degree and realize that astronomical salary you get paid to sit behind a desk. Plenty of people put in a lot more for a lot less.

I have heard this question from a few underclassmen at my school. My advice is the same, for the first semester you MUST write an outline for every class. After you get your feet wet with law school exams and grading you can tweak your system to fit your needs, but for the first semester I would take the extra steps and write a full comprehensive outine. Using someone else's outline, in my opinion, is the most dangerous trap you can set for yourself. It's hardly the information in the outline that provides the best exam prep, but the actual outline writing that forces you to pull everything together in a cohesive fashion.

I didn't feel like spell checking or re-reading this post, so I don't care if there's grammar or spelling errors.

I am clerking at a trial court in the state I plan to practice next year. I clerked with that state's supreme court currently in my third year of law school. I went onto their website and it directed me to send a resume, c/l, writing sample and transcripts to one judge and she'll distribute them all. I did that and heard nothing for about 2 weeks. Then I sent to all the individual judges, save a few I knew already hired clerks. That lead to three interviews and a clerkship.

This all happened in a small state with a small bench. That particular court only has 19 judges and 13 in the county I want to practice. It may be different for larger states.

I understand the federal clerkships are more prestigious, but you also want to consider where you want to end up. I want to do business litigation in state court, the bench in my state is highly respected by the bar and will lead to significant opprotunities (I hope). Feds may be more prestigious in some markets and less in others. It's all relative to what you want to do. Don't be blindly biased by the prestige whores on this board.